


Windows to the Soul

by Dracorex



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Angst, Angst and Feels, Dresden Files References, F/M, Gen, I borrowed a little bit from, Post-Season 4, Supernatural Elements, The Dresden Files - Freeform, also a little bit of humour, bit of friendship, but I wouldn't really call it a proper alternate universe, nothing's graphic in here, so i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 13:31:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21271841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dracorex/pseuds/Dracorex
Summary: Magic or no, everyone's still so very human.





	Windows to the Soul

**Author's Note:**

> Written in general relation to the prompt 'witch', and with vague relation to the other prompt of "I Fell in Love With the Devil" by Avril Lavigne, as requested by eastwesthomeisbest, for thedeckerstarnetwork's Like a Bat Out of Hell exchange.
> 
> I was hoping to write something vaguely in the style of one of the episodes: case to solve, existential dramedy, plot twist. Except real life handed me a plot twist or two, and so here instead we have a lot of talking, with bits and pieces of something resembling a plot in the dialogue. And a day late. But I think there's still something fun to read here. I hope :P
> 
> We're also assuming it takes place in some nebulous post-Season 4 future point in time where Lucifer is back on Earth and all that.
> 
> (Forgive minor formatting issues. Using Rich Text and previewing did things I'd rather not examine too closely.)

It had begun the way many of their cases did: a body, an interview with a distraught connected person, finding a suspect, the interview room at the precinct.  But then, when Lucifer leaned forward, almost snarling, “come on, out with it, what was it you wanted,” their suspect actually jerked his head to the side, breaking eye contact and refusing to answer the question.

“You don’t want to do that,” the man said warningly, his eyes fixed on the floor. Matthew Smith, bookstore owner. Of average height and a little too thin and angular, he looked almost stereotypically shady, in his black longcoat, shirt and jeans, not to mention the tense, wary way he held himself.

“No, I think I do,” her partner retorted, rounding the table to take Smith by the shoulder, who twitched, then apparently changed his mind; the look he flung up at Lucifer was nothing short of defiant challenge.

They glared at each other, mirrored pairs of dark brown eyes. “I want absolution,” Smith confessed, pained and quiet, “but I did not kill my  _ friend  _ and I refuse to be framed for it!”

Smith’s shout of outrage had barely left his lips when he jerked backwards, scrambling out of his chair to back up against the wall, a knife flashing into his hand to point at Lucifer. “Hell’s bells,” he swore. “You’re not human. What  _ are _ you?”

Chloe paused, hand on her gun, and glanced at her partner, who returned the look, his expression as baffled as she felt.

“And what about you?” Smith asked, and when she turned back to meet his gaze he didn’t look away; the moment stretched and-

-he was a warrior, not just a soldier who took orders to defend what he safeguarded, but someone who loved the skill and the thrill for its own sake. He believed in doing the right thing with the zeal of someone who hadn't always believed it, and the guilt of the old, old blood on his hands went all the way down to the core of him, but he was still an old wolf with the teeth it implied-

-and Chloe knew, somehow, that she had seen something _ true _ , and that this sight of his truth was literally unforgettable.

“What was that?” she said, nearly numb with the shock of it. It shouldn’t be as bad as seeing Lucifer’s devil face, horribly raw and intense, but it felt that bad. “Who are you?”

“ _ You _ are mortal human, at least,” Smith remarked with something like relief, and she realized distantly that his accent shifted, from phrase to phrase, as though he'd learned English in bits and pieces from more than a few different countries. He sheathed his knife within his coat, and inclined his head very slightly to her; it seemed almost like a gesture of respect. “Detective,”  _ oh, it  _ is _ respect, _ she noted, “you weren’t surprised to hear what I said about him, though you were surprised to hear it from me.”

“You’re one of those humans with magic, aren’t you?” Lucifer cut in at this point, sounding like a mix of bewildered and irritated. “Bloody wizards.”

Chloe darted another startled glance at him; Lucifer _ looked _ bewildered and irritated too. “What my partner is isn’t important,” she said firmly after a moment. “Mr Smith--start talking.”

Smith sighed, and pulled his chair over to sit down once more. Lucifer backed off to stand beside her again, thankfully. “I’m a wizard,” Smith said mildly. “Belinda was a friend of mine, and what some people in the know would call a minor talent.”

“Then this was a real ritual?” she asked, and slid the photos of the crime scene across the table.

He didn't quite wince at the spread of red and black, but his lips thinned briefly before he turned forbiddingly expressionless. “I don’t envy you the task of writing up the report on this, Detective,” he commented after a moment, a pale attempt at humor even as he spread the images out, barely touching them with the tip of one long finger, a silver ring glinting upon it. “What do you know about thaumaturgy?”

* * *

“-not even an accurate term, but that’s the White Council for you; bloody pretentious wankers.” Lucifer made a dismissive gesture, and rested his hands upon his hips.

Linda managed to take a deep breath, though she couldn’t bring herself to take her eyes off him. “Wizards are  _ real _ ?”

“Yes, doctor,” Lucifer said exasperatedly, “haven’t you been listening? There’s at least two of them in town, one of them killed another with magic, and the other can’t bloody well stop talking.”

“Lucifer.” Linda couldn’t quite help the note of mild reproach, and he didn’t quite grimace as it caught his attention. She tried to gentle her tone, but a touch of irony slipped in alongside. “People - humans - aren’t born knowing about everything. Anything. Some explanation would be appreciated.”

The Devil sighed, and reseated himself upon her couch, one leg crossing neatly over the other, the picture of dignified tolerance if it weren’t for the quizzical way he spoke after a moment. “Where do I start?”

“Where do they come from? And what about witches?”

“Well, they’re human,” he said with a light shrug. “Just with a little something extra. Witch, wizard, sorcerer… some people mean specific ideas with them.” He shrugged again, as though he found it inconsequential. “It’s… mostly the same. A human with magic. But you humans can be rather creative.”

“Why?” Linda leaned forward a little. “What’s that ‘something extra’?”

Lucifer scoffed softly. “Dad alone knows why. Speaking of Him, though; all that rubbish about dear old Dad making humans in His image…” He gestured at Linda, up and down, apparently unable to find the words for the absurdity of it, and she thought abruptly of what had happened with his mother, or perhaps Mother: celestial light that could not be contained by mortal flesh. “It’s not  _ complete _ tosh. They’ve got a little more of the forces of creation in them, that’s all.”

Linda considered him thoughtfully. “What about you? You’re an angel. But you don’t…” She waved one hand in a ‘whoosh’ gesture. “Do magic. Glowing light? Floating objects?”

Lucifer looked at her with those dark eyes, unblinking. “I’m not human. It’s different for us. Angels are created, not born, and we simply  _ are _ what we were made to be. Like you said, doctor, humans aren’t born knowing things. You have to grow. Learn. Change. And then you change things.”

* * *

“So, what was that, when you looked at me and…?” Chloe didn’t exactly  _ want _ Smith hanging around, but he’d invited himself along, and it wouldn’t be the first time she’d had unwelcome tagalongs on her case.

“It’s a soulgaze,” he replied easily, strolling along beside her with his hands in his pockets. “You know that feeling when you look someone in the eye, and it’s, like, weirdly intimate after a moment, and you just have to stop looking? If one of those two people is a wizard, though, then something more happens. Each of them Sees a glimpse of the other’s true nature.”

“Like actual windows to the soul. Lucifer, is that thing you do-”

“No,” her partner replied shortly, at the same time as Smith said, “I highly doubt it.”

They paused, staring at each other again. “Both parties need to be  _ human _ for that,” Smith clarified. “I’ve heard about you before, I admit. But I thought it was only an act; didn’t think the First of the Fallen would actually be hanging around in LA, just like that.”

Lucifer blinked. “I’m surprised you’re not more afraid of the Devil,” he said after a moment.

“Have you heard about the things your other wayward siblings get up to?” Smith smirked briefly at the face Lucifer made. “Yeah. I figure if you were going to do anything horrible, you’d be doing it already. And you’re not being a creep the way the Fair Folk can-”

“Hey!”

All three of them turned, to see a beautiful Indian woman peering out at them from behind the window of a house - the house outside which they had stopped, lingering upon the sidewalk. Gold-ringed fingers with lacquered nails pushed the curtains aside a little more. “You going to keep standing on my doorstep gossiping, Matt?”

“This isn’t a social call, Asha,” he called back; Chloe made it to the door first, Lucifer on her heels.

“LAPD,” Chloe told her as she showed her badge, outwardly all professional calm. “We have a few questions for you.”

Asha nodded, stern and regal; her hand did something out of sight on the wall beside the door, slightly more complicated than flipping a switch, and then she stepped aside, gesturing for them to come in. Chloe felt like she pressed past an invisible veil of cloth as she entered, and when she turned afterwards Lucifer had an annoyed look on his face, like he’d noticed it too.

“You are welcome in my home,” Asha said to Smith, a delicate emphasis on the ‘you’ in her rich, smooth voice; the two of them clasped hands briefly, and then she was waving them to the couches, with fat, embroidered pillows and a thick rug beneath their feet. There weren’t any visible switches on the walls, just carved decorative paneling, and shelves with well-worn children’s books and toys.

“They know,” Smith said mildly. He didn’t look perturbed at all. “Virtually nothing, but still.”

“Oh?” She arched a sharp eyebrow briefly as she considered them; it seemed to Chloe that she wasn’t nearly as concerned about the police as she was about the friend she’d just welcomed in. “Let’s hear all about it.”

* * *

“Lucifer’s an idiot,” Maze said dismissively, fiddling with the straw in her glass like she wished she had someone to stab it with, “but no, I don’t think he’s jealous, he’s worried. And maybe mad about something.”

“What do you mean?” Chloe asked. They were having something like a quiet girls’ night in at Linda’s home, an absolute necessity given the latest round in the supernatural drama that their lives were, even if they had to keep the volume of their griping down in order to not disturb Charlie.

“It’s all about perspective,” Maze informed her with a wry smirk. “And all this magic stuff really means is there are different rules. Like, I’m awesome, and a lot of things that would put a human down only trip me up for a while, but if one of them draws the right kind of warding circle, they could trap me inside it. I wouldn’t be able to do shit until someone broke the circle from the outside.”

It still ached to think about, that time she’d helped plot to send Lucifer back to Hell, but it now served for knowledge, that there had been a specific ritual, which needed a suitable location. “Is he worried about the chance of something like that happening to him?”  _ Again _ , she didn’t add.

“Could be. Could be he’s worried about you getting mixed up in all this supernatural stuff. No offence, Chloe, but there’s a whole lot of crazy stuff out there.” Wasn’t it just sobering, to hear that from a demon of all people. “Could be he’s just angry about this warlock going around killing with magic. There’s what, a second body already? Another friend of that guy's? It’s not really my area of expertise, I don’t have a soul, but… humans aren’t supposed to do that. Kill using magic.”

“Lucifer did say something about that,” Linda interjected. “That for a human, using magic is an expression of their will. You have to really believe in it to be able to do it.”

“Yeah. True faith is rare,” Maze said with an air of amusement. “Warding off vampires with a holy cross isn’t complete bullshit, it’s just…”

Chloe wasn’t really paying attention anymore; it had occurred to her that she might know now, why old dried blood stained Matthew Smith’s soul.

* * *

“Story of my misspent youth,” Smith said. 

They stood regarding the body from a good distance. What was left of it, red and black mingling upon the tiles.

“It’s not like there’s an introductory class for the supernatural,” the wizard continued in that flat tone, hands still tucked in his pockets, shoulders slightly hunched. “We hit puberty, discover we can do some wacky shit, then we do some really wacky shit. If you’re unlucky, the White Council sends someone who successfully finds you and lops your head off. If you’re lucky like me, that’s when things get complicated.”

Turned out the killer was someone from Smith’s past, who had developed quite the complex over him going on the straight and narrow. “But that’s the thing about having friends, Jason,” he told the corpse. “Sometimes they know things you don’t, and they help you with it. Asha has a gift for warding spells; her home is practically a metaphysical fortress. Your sloppy, nasty little curse would have slid right off, even if I hadn’t given her the ring you gave me. Thaumaturgy, guys.”

“You gave her a connection to him,” Chloe realized.

“And boom, return to sender.” Smith had a faint, sickly smile on his face now, as he finally looked at them. Looked past her to Lucifer, really. “I’m going to Hell, right?”

“...Well, that depends,” her partner said after a moment, as serious as she ever saw him. “I think in this case, justice has been served. As for the rest of it, someone once told me... that you need to forgive yourself.”

* * *

It was just the two of them now, in his penthouse apartment, sitting together; Lucifer had an arm around her shoulders, and his nose pressed to her hair. “This case… has upset you,” she said after a while, not quite a question. “You know you can talk to me, right?”

She’d told him that before, too, more than once. Though he did take her up on it these days, most of the time. “You shared a moment of Sight with him. The soulgaze.”

“What about it?” It was more knowledge she’d rather not have to remember, and so indelibly vivid at that, but she didn’t think that was what was on his mind.

“A reminder. That I’m not human, and you are.”

“I’ve heard a lot about all this magical theory, in the past few days,” Chloe said consideringly. “There was quite a bit about how the nature of most supernatural beings are… immutable. Unchanging. Especially in comparison to humans being more malleable, and how our beliefs can change things. But I don’t think it’s that simple. Lucifer, you left Hell before I ever met you. You change, because you want to. It’s your choice.”

“Maybe so,” he murmured, and leaned down to kiss her.

**Author's Note:**

> Epilogue:
> 
> "Vampires are REAL?!"
> 
> ~or~
> 
> Chloe: -stares at the body- "I have no idea how to write the report on this case."
> 
> Smith: "I could burn the place down. Make it look like an accident."
> 
> Lucifer: "Excellent idea."
> 
> Chloe: "NO."


End file.
